Note: This post contains references to fat-shaming and anti-fatness that may be challenging for some readers.
1. Chris Pratt was initially deemed “too fat” for the role of Scott Hatteberg in Moneyball. This led him to resort to crash dieting and other measures to shed the pounds. However, he eventually secured the role.
2. Ashley Benson has also faced criticism about her weight, being told multiple times that she was “too fat” for certain roles. She expressed her confusion and frustration, stating, “It’s come up a few times in the last few years, like, ‘You’re too fat for this.’ And I’m just sitting here like, ‘Wait, what? Do you want a skeleton?’ But I feel good. I don’t want to lose 20 pounds, because I don’t need to. Do you feel pressure to be skinny to get acting work? I get told all the time to lose weight. I got that a month ago. It’s just weird. With my stuff recently, it’s been, ‘You have to be skin and bones or you’re not getting it.’”
3. Henry Cavill was informed at the age of 21 that he didn’t have the right physique to portray James Bond.
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4. Reese Witherspoon was once told that she was “too intelligent” for a particular role as a young woman.
5. When Maggie Gyllenhaal was 37, she was informed that she was considered “too mature” to portray the love interest of a 55-year-old man.
6. Likewise, Geena Davis was informed that she was too mature to play the love interest of a character who was 20 years her senior.
7. Olivia Wilde, at 29, expressed interest in portraying Naomi in The Wolf of Wall Street but was also informed that she was considered too mature for the role.
8. At 43, Jamie Denbo was told she was “too mature” to portray the mother of an 18-year-old and the wife of a 57-year-old.
9. Tiffany Haddish used to “unintentionally” leave her purse (containing her phone, which recorded audio) in audition rooms to overhear what casting directors said about her and why she was not selected. Reasons included comments like, “She is not as urban as I thought she would be,” “She’s too ghetto, I can’t handle it,” “Her chest is not large enough,” and “I truly believe we should cast a white girl. This role should be rewritten for a white actress.”
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10. Zoë Kravitz faced a similar rejection when auditioning for The Dark Knight Rises, being told she was “too urban.” While acknowledging that this feedback likely originated from a casting director or their assistant rather than Christopher Nolan himself, Kravitz expressed frustration. She highlighted the difficulty of being a woman of color in the acting industry and being denied an audition based on her skin color, with the term “urban” being used in a derogatory manner.
11. Priyanka Chopra faced rejection from a movie role in 2017 due to her race. “I was considered for a movie, and someone from the studio called one of my agents and mentioned, ‘She’s wrong…’ — what was the term they used? — ‘…physicality.’ As an actor, I questioned myself, ‘Should I be thinner? Should I get fitter? Should I have abs?’ What does ‘wrong physicality’ even mean?” Chopra recounted to InStyle. “Then my agent explained it to me. ‘I think, Priy, they meant that they wanted someone who isn’t brown.'”
12. Reports surfaced that Regé-Jean Page was rejected for the role of Seg-El in Krypton due to his race. Allegedly, DC Films co-founder Geoff Johns remarked, “Superman could not have a Black grandfather,” despite Page auditioning for the role.
13. Daniel Kaluuya has also disclosed that he faced rejections for roles in the UK because of his race.
14. At 19 years old, Catherine Zeta-Jones was informed that she was “too old” and “too attractive” for the lead role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production of Aspects of Love, which was intended for a 20-year-old.
15. On the day Rachel Brosnahan was cast as the lead in the comedy The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, she had lost a role earlier that day because she was deemed “not humorous enough.” This was a criticism Brosnahan had faced repeatedly throughout her career.
16. James McAvoy has encountered rejection for roles due to his height, being labeled as “too short.” Despite being 5’7″, which is the same height as Tom Cruise, McAvoy has faced this criticism in his career.
17. Mindy Kaling was informed that she was not only not pretty enough to portray herself in a sketch show but also not humorous enough. She subsequently transitioned into a writer and actor on The Office, which went on to become one of the most renowned and successful comedies in television history.
18. Lastly, while not specifically for a particular role, Colton Haynes was advised early in his career by his manager to alter his behavior, as it was considered too “theater,” which Haynes interpreted as code for being gay. He even underwent voice training to modify his pronunciation to sound less gay, as he felt that the softness of his “s” sounds contributed to this perception.
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